Twelve pairs who went through to the final. The audience seats was very steep and bit scary to look up – thank god my seat was on a lower row. I was a bit disappointed by the position which is quite angular despite of its most expensive A class price (only this class was available).

I saw the photos of Olympic Park, currently on construction in Stratford in east London, on ES, a lifestyle magazine which comes with London’s free evening paper Evening Standard on Fridays. The construction seems to be going well, in compare to Athens Olympic, with its construction of the olympic facilities were finished just few seconds before the inauguration.

‘Driftwood‘ is the AA school (Architectural Association School of Architecture)’s the fourth annual summer pavilion series and has been placed in Bedford Square, off Tottenham Court Road, from July 3rd. AA school is one of the world’s most renowned and influential schools of architecture, and its alumni include world renown architects such as Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas. ‘Driftwood’ was designed by AA school students, Danecia Sibingo and her three team members (Lyn Hayek, Yoojin Kim, and Taeyoung Lee), inspired by images of Jordan’s UNESCO world heritage archaeological site Petra. The work consists of 28 layers of plywood and its fabrication took seven weeks. As its name, ‘driftwood’, it is a beautiful work with its streamline, and match with the quiet space of Bedford Square surrounded by preserved Georgian architectures.

今年は、日本のSANAA（建築家の妹島和世・西沢立衛による建築ユニット）がデザインした。SANAAいわく、このパビリオンのコンセプトは「floating aluminium, drifting freely between the trees like smoke.（煙のように木々の間を自由に漂う、空に浮かぶアルミニウム）」。ピカピカした表面が鏡のように、下にいる人やオブジェクトを反射させる。上空から見ると公園内にある池に見えるが、地上からはパビリオンの全容がよく見えないので、インパクトが薄い。アルミニウムやプレキシグラス（アクリル樹脂）という人工素材が、緑多いハイドパークに溶け込んでいないかな、と思った。

Japanese architect unit SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa) designed this year’s pavilion. The concept of design is “floating aluminium, drifting freely between the trees like smoke”. Shiny surface reflects people or objects underneath. It looks a water pond from above, but I couldn’t see a concept and whole view on the ground, unless you fly. Also the materials like aluminium and Plexiglas don’t really fit in with the green Hyde park.